Jigsaw

ABSTRACT

A jigsaw with at least some pieces being adapted to be placed alongside a plurality of other pieces by having an upper surface feature extending substantially completely along any one or more of the mating edges so that any other piece with a corresponding upper surface feature extending substantially completely along any one of the corresponding mating edges can be placed along side the or any one of the corresponding upper surface feature edges of the former piece. Preferably, the upper surface features extend completely along a whole number of mating edges and further surface features are provided along further mating edges of at least some of the pieces. Thereafter the surface feature remote from the mating edge may form a common border with one or more other surface feature remote borders. The invention allows the interchange of pieces to create new surface features.

The present invention relates to a jigsaw and more particularly, ajigsaw with interchangeable pieces.

Providing more than one solution to a jigsaw puzzle has been disclosedin the prior art. Australian patent specification number 133511discloses a jigsaw which is designed so that a panel of the puzzlebearing a representation can be interchanged with an auxilliary panelbearing a different representation so as to produce a variation of theoriginal picture. The problem is solved by having common features alongthe puzzle interlocking edges of the respective panels and differentfeatures within the respective panels. Despite the fact that the panelsare interchangeable, each of the pieces within each panel are designedto occupy a fixed position with respect to the other pieces in order toform the representation and individual pieces are not interchangeable.

Dutch patent application number 9100179 discloses two puzzles which arelinkable by having matching edge sections. It appears that the puzzlescan be linked together by having a common intersecting line. The linehas to extend from top to bottom and the edge pieces are not inthemselves interchangeable.

UK patent number 424772 overcomes the problem by providing a set ofcommon pieces, such as parts of the anatomy, which can then beinterchanged with other pieces presenting that same part of the anatomyin a different manner. Although this game provides some creativity, itdoes lack versatility and relies upon a pre-determined general solutionso that the respective parts of the anatomy are always placed in thesame relationship with the other parts even though any particular parthas a varied set of pieces.

U.S. Pat. No. 4,052,074 relates to a similar concept but, in this case,relies upon the symmetrical morphology of its objects such asbutterflies. The puzzle is limited to representations of forms whichhave inbuilt morphological dividing lines which form the edges of thepieces. Again, the main drawback is that each piece has a fixed locationwith respect to the other pieces in the puzzle even though by providinga variety of pieces for each position patterns and colours for eachpiece can be varied.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a jigsaw puzzle withgreater versatility and more creative options.

According to the present invention there is provided a jigsaw comprisingat least some pieces which are adapted to be placed alongside aplurality of other pieces by having an upper surface feature extendingsubstantially completely along any one or more of the mating edgesthereof so that any other piece with the corresponding upper surfacefeature extending substantially completely along any one of thecorresponding mating edges thereof can be placed alongside the or anyone of the corresponding upper surface feature edge(s) of the formerpiece.

By allowing any particular surface feature to extend, completely alongone or more mating edges of the piece it can be matched up with the edgeof another piece which similarly has the same surface feature extendingcompletely along it. For instance, the surface feature may representwater such as a lake, ocean, river or sea. The piece may then be laidalongside any other piece which has the same water feature extendingalong one of the sides thereof. Because there is no break in the featurealong the edge it may be mated with any other piece in the jigsaw whichhas the same feature extending completely along one of its edges.

Preferably, the upper surface feature extends completely along a wholenumber of mating edges. Thus, in a piece with four edges the uppersurface feature may extend along one, two, three or four of the edges ofthe piece. In this way, if the surface feature extended along two edges,say at right angles, it would not impinge upon the third or fourth edgewhich would leave these latter edges free to accomodate a differentfeature which could then be combined with any other piece with such adifferent feature. Thus the versatility of the game is considerablyincreased by only having the upper surface feature extending completelyalong a whole number of mating edges and thus minimising mismatchingbetween pieces.

Typically, there will be more than one surface feature on a piece and ina piece with four edges up to four different surface features could beprovided. The surface feature may include a border which will meet theperiphery of the piece at the junctures or corners between the edges andthis will also seperate different surface features. It will beappreciated that in such cases the surface feature border may not matchas well with other pieces having the same surface feature without aborder and for this reason the border thickness is kept relativelynarrow at the corners of the piece in order to minimise incongruity. Theborders between these different surface features will always extend fromthe corners of the piece between two edges. However, subject to thislimit, the borders may thereafter be contoured to present any desiredeffect between the surface features and it is envisaged that the borderitself may form a further surface feature within the piece. As theborder of the piece, typically, terminates at the corner between twoedges it may be matched up with the border of a mating piece to presenta newly created border for the surface feature. In this manner, a wholearray of patterns, landscapes etc can be produced by the creativity ofthe user of the puzzle.

Although it is possible for the shapes of the pieces of the jigsaw to beirregular, it is preferred that most, if not all, of the pieces will beof the same shape and size so as to provide an almost unlimited numberof solutions to the puzzle. Nevertheless, it is possible to incorporatesome fixed solutions into the puzzle and this is particularly the casewhere it is necessary to incorporate a continuous feature such as a roador railway track across the puzzle.

It is also envisaged that the puzzle can incorporate three-dimensionalfeatures into the upper surface feature which may add to the appeal ofthe puzzle.

Although, strictly, jigsaws generally consist of irregularly shapedinterlocking pieces, it is also envisaged that embodiments havingidentically shaped non-interlocking pieces can also be provided. In suchpuzzles, the pieces may simply be laid side by side without thenecessity to provide any interlocking means. Alternatively, the piecescould be interlocked by other means which do not affect the shape of theupper surface.

An embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example,with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 shows an array of pieces in accordance with the presentinvention; and

FIG. 2 shows a partially completed jigsaw having pieces in accordancewith the present invention.

Referring to FIG. 1, three pieces, 2, 4, 6, in particular, are shown.Each piece reveals three types of upper surface feature which representsea, rocks and land respectively and which are coloured blue, brown andgreen respectively in the actual embodiment. Referring to piece 2, theupper surface feature of the sea 8 can be seen to extend completelyalong one of the mating edges of the piece but does not impinge upon anyof the other three mating edges. The sea feature is surrounded by aborder which takes the form of rocks 10 and extends from the corner ofthe edge upon which the sea feature impinges to the other corner of thesaid edge by way of a meandering path which does not impinge upon any ofthe other edges. The border is surrounded on its other side by landfeatures 12 which cover exactly three sides of the piece and extend intothe piece interior to meet the border. Referring to piece 4, the seafeature 8 can be seen to extend completely along two of the side edgesof the four sided piece with the border rock area 10 extending in ameandering fashion from one corner of the piece to the corner which isdiagonally opposite. The rock feature does not impinge. upon theremainder of the piece, including the remaining two sides, which iscovered by the land feature 12. A similar arrangement but with adifferently shaped border is found in piece 6. All three pieces havefurther surface features, such as bushes 14 and rock islands 16, whichadd to the variety of the landscapes possible.

Referring to FIG. 2, the partially assembled puzzle reveals a number ofpieces in accordance with the present invention. For instance, piece 20shows a land feature with a border extending along one side thereof butwith water extending along the three other sides thereof. Piece 22 hasthe land feature extending across two sides with the water featureextending across the two remaining sides. Piece 24 has a land featureextending across three sides and a water feature extending across oneside thereof. The three pieces are shown joined together by way ofmatching edges and it can be clearly seen that a new and creativelandscape results therefrom. This would not be possible if each featuredid not extend completely along one or more edges. As the puzzle of theinvention can be mixed with traditional jigsaw pieces, a convenientexample of the prior art type of piece is shown by feature 26 which ismade up of four pieces which have a surface feature which does notextend completely along two of the side thereof respectively. Thus, ofnecessity, four pieces must be joined together and cannot sensibly belocated separately. Nevertheless, even with this example, two of theedges are completely covered by a single surface feature and these aretherefore able to interact with other pieces of the game so long asother pieces have a matching feature along one of their edges which, inthis case, is land feature 12. Similarly, pieces 26, 28 and 30 havesurface features extending completely along two of the edges thereofwhich are disposed on either side of the piece but have mixed surfacefeatures extending along the other two sides of the piece. Thus, thethree pieces are designed to be aligned with each other along the mixedfeature sides but to interact with the rest of the pieces of the game ina creative manner along the sides which present a single upper surfacefeature.

The game may give many solutions and can be mixed with fixed solutionelements so as to provide a highly entertaining, creative and variablepuzzle. The upper surface features described have included rocks, seaand land but it should be appreciated that many features can beincorporated into the pieces so long as the principle of extendingcompletely along one or more sides is adopted.

We claim:
 1. A jigsaw comprising:a plurality of pieces; said pieceshaving at least one of at least one protuberance and at least oneindentation on a periphery thereof, such that said protuberance of afirst piece mates with said indentation of a second piece; saidperiphery of each piece having at least two mating edges which meet toprovide at least two corners; each of said pieces displaying at leasttwo different upper surface features; each of said pieces having aboundary between said upper surface features which extends from a firstcorner to a second corner of said piece; each of said pieces having oneof its upper surface features extending substantially completely alongan edge so that pieces having the same surface feature extendingcompletely along an edge can be placed alongside one another; each piecehaving a plurality of other pieces of the same kind having boundarieswhich extend between corresponding corners; and said at least one of atleast one protuberance or indentation of each kind of piece having atleast one other piece which can be mated therewith to provide acontinuous boundary which is different depending upon which of said atleast one other piece is selected.
 2. A jigsaw according to claim 1, inwhich the corners are adjacent to one another.
 3. A jigsaw according toclaim 1, in which at least some pieces have upper surface featuresextending substantially completely along all their mating edges.
 4. Ajigsaw according to claim 1, in which one or more corners aresubstantially rectangular.
 5. A jigsaw according to claim 1, in whicheach piece or each kind of piece are identically shaped.